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As the civil fraud case against Donald Trump and his company continues in New York, the former president made his latest appearance at the courthouse roughly 24 hours ago, delivering another rant to reporters. The Republican once again condemned state Attorney General Letitia James, decried the trial as “rigged,” and shared some new thoughts on the value of Mar-a-Lago.
In fact, Trump said, in reference to his glorified country club, “The house is worth a billion, a billion and a half, 750 million; it’s worth a fortune,” adding that the property is “the most expensive house probably in the world.”
Given that part of the case against him relates to the Republican exaggerating the values of his properties, there was a degree of irony to the harangue.
But as NBC News reported, there was an unrelated legal obligation on Trump’s to-do list.
Trump left during the midafternoon break to deal with another legal matter: testifying in a two-hour, closed-door deposition in a case involving former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, whom he has mocked publicly for years. Strzok and Page were critical of Trump in private text messages to each other while they were involved in then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Circling back to our earlier coverage, it’s been a while since Strzok and Page generated front-page headlines, but they were prominent figures in the investigation into Trump’s Russia scandal. Strzok, for example, was the senior FBI official who helped lead the initial probe of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
In time, however, 2016 text messages he sent to Page, in which they disparaged the future president, came to light, and they were kicked off then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Page, a former FBI lawyer, ultimately resigned in 2018, and the same year, Strzok was fired.
In the months and years that followed, Strzok and Page remained the target of Republican ire and conspiracy theories, and according to former White House chief of staff John Kelly, Trump wanted the IRS and the Justice Department to go after Page and Strzok, even after their ouster from the FBI, during his presidency.
Strzok ultimately filed a civil suit against the bureau, arguing that he was wrongfully terminated, while Page also sued, alleging privacy violations. In July, a federal judge concluded that Trump could be deposed as part of the civil litigation.
Time will tell, of course, whether the allegations prevail in court. There’s reason to believe that Strzok has a credible case — he appears to have been fired outside the bureau’s normal disciplinary process — but there’s plenty of litigating still to come.
In the meantime, however, what I care about is the fact that Trump was deposed. This is of interest because the Republican’s depositions never seem to go well for him.
In 2021, for example, a court ordered Trump to testify under oath in a lawsuit brought by protestors who were allegedly roughed up by his security guards outside Trump Tower in New York. During his deposition, the former president said he feared protesters would hit him with tomatoes, pineapples, and other “very dangerous” fruit, declaring — in apparent seriousness —that “you can be killed if that happens.”
Trump also gave a deposition in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case, which went even worse for him. According to his testimony, which was featured during the trial, Trump considered himself a star, and he believed it’s “largely true” that stars have been able to get away with assaulting women “over the last million years ... unfortunately or fortunately.”
In the same deposition, Trump confused Carroll with his second wife — undermining his indefensible rhetoric about his “type” — and struggled to remember the details of his adulterous past.
What did the former president say in response to question from Strzok’s lawyers? For now, we don’t know, but we’ll likely see a transcript eventually. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.